Selective wetting of substrates by materials of different polarities and hydrophilicities can be controlled by the application of coatings to substrate surfaces. Selective wetting can be a useful property of substrate surfaces, such as in efforts to reduce the production of water and aqueous fluids from oil and gas wells. The challenge with most such coating chemistries is providing performance benefits while simultaneously having the ability to bind to surfaces; often coatings that bind to surfaces offer decreased selective wetting properties, and coatings that provide good selective wetting do not bind effectively to a substrate. For example, it is known that betaine-functional polymers have good selective wetting properties. However, they simply wash off surfaces because they are water-soluble. In contrast, incorporating betaine functionality into a traditional coating (for example, a urethane or acrylic) will achieve surface bonding but at the cost of the loss of the desirable repellant properties. In order to achieve chemical bonding of betaine-containing polymers to surfaces without sacrificing the desired properties, techniques such as graft polymerization are usually necessary, which are difficult to perform and are very substrate-specific.
It would be desirable to provide film-forming compositions useful in methods of reducing adhesion of an organic substance to a substrate, while overcoming the drawbacks of the prior art.